As an attractive materials system for highperformance optoelectronics, colloidal nanoplatelets (NPLs) benefit from atomic-level precision in thickness, minimizing emission inhomogeneous broadening. Much progress has been made to enhance their photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) and photostability. However, to date, layer-by-layer growth of shells at room temperature has resulted in defects that limit PLQY and thus curtail the performance of NPLs as an optical gain medium. Here, we introduce a hot-injection method growing giant alloyed shells using an approach that reduces core/shell lattice mismatch and suppresses Auger recombination. Near-unity PLQY is achieved with a narrow full-width-at-half-maximum (20 nm), accompanied by emission tunability (from 610 to 650 nm). The biexciton lifetime exceeds 1 ns, an order of magnitude longer than in conventional colloidal quantum dots (CQDs). Reduced Auger recombination enables record-low amplified spontaneous emission threshold of 2.4 μJ cm −2 under one-photon pumping. This is lower by a factor of 2.5 than the best previously reported value in nanocrystals (6 μJ cm −2 for CdSe/CdS NPLs). Here, we also report single-mode lasing operation with a 0.55 mJ cm −2 threshold under twophotoexcitation, which is also the best among nanocrystals (compared to 0.76 mJ cm −2 from CdSe/CdS CQDs in the Fabry−Peŕot cavity). These findings indicate that hot-injection growth of thick alloyed shells makes ultrahigh performance NPLs.
Colloidal semiconductor nanoplatelets (NPLs) offer important benefits in nanocrystal optoelectronics with their unique excitonic properties. For NPLs, colloidal atomic layer deposition (c‐ALD) provides the ability to produce their core/shell heterostructures. However, as c‐ALD takes place at room temperature, this technique allows for only limited stability and low quantum yield. Here, highly stable, near‐unity efficiency CdSe/ZnS NPLs are shown using hot‐injection (HI) shell growth performed at 573 K, enabling routinely reproducible quantum yields up to 98%. These CdSe/ZnS HI‐shell hetero‐NPLs fully recover their initial photoluminescence (PL) intensity in solution after a heating cycle from 300 to 525 K under inert gas atmosphere, and their solid films exhibit 100% recovery of their initial PL intensity after a heating cycle up to 400 K under ambient atmosphere, by far outperforming the control group of c‐ALD shell‐coated CdSe/ZnS NPLs, which can sustain only 20% of their PL. In optical gain measurements, these core/HI‐shell NPLs exhibit ultralow gain thresholds reaching ≈7 µJ cm−2. Despite being annealed at 500 K, these ZnS‐HI‐shell NPLs possess low gain thresholds as small as 25 µJ cm−2. These findings indicate that the proposed 573 K HI‐shell‐grown CdSe/ZnS NPLs hold great promise for extraordinarily high performance in nanocrystal optoelectronics.
Solution-processed type-II quantum wells exhibit outstanding optical properties, which make them promising candidates for light-generating applications including lasers and LEDs. However, they may suffer from poor colloidal stability under ambient conditions and show strong tendency to assemble into face-to-face stacks. In this work, to resolve the colloidal stability and uncontrolled stacking issues, we proposed and synthesized CdSe/CdSe 1−x Te x /CdS core/multicrown heteronanoplatelets (NPLs), controlling the amount of Te up to 50% in the crown without changing their thicknesses, which significantly increases their colloidal and photostability under ambient conditions and at the same time preserving their attractive optical properties. Confirming the final lateral growth of CdS sidewalls with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive analysis, and photoelectron excitation spectroscopy, we found that the successful coating of this CdS crown around the periphery of conventional type-II NPLs prevents the unwanted formation of needle-like stacks, which results in reduction of the undesired scattering losses in thin-film samples of these NPLs. Owing to highly efficient exciton funneling from the outmost CdS crown accompanied by the reduced scattering and very low waveguide loss coefficient (∼18 cm −1), ultralow optical gain thresholds of multicrown type-II NPLs were achieved to be as low as 4.15 μJ/cm 2 and 2.48 mJ/cm 2 under one-and two-photon absorption pumping, respectively. These findings indicate that the strategy of using engineered advanced heterostructures of nanoplatelets provides solutions for improved colloidal stability and enables enhanced photonic performance.
Surface effects in atomically flat colloidal CdSe nanoplatelets (NLPs) are significantly and increasingly important with their thickness being reduced to subnanometer level, generating strong surface related deep trap photoluminescence emission alongside the bandedge emission. Herein, colloidal synthesis of highly luminescent two-monolayer (2ML) CdSe NPLs and a systematic investigation of carrier dynamics in these NPLs exhibiting broad photoluminescence emission covering the visible region with quantum yields reaching 90% in solution and 85% in a polymer matrix is shown. The astonishingly efficient Stokes-shifted broadband photoluminescence (PL) emission with a lifetime of ≈100 ns and the extremely short PL lifetime of around 0.16 ns at the bandedge signify the participation of radiative midgap surface centers in the recombination process associated with the underpassivated Se sites. Also, a proof-of-concept hybrid LED employing 2ML CdSe NPLs is developed as color converters, which exhibits luminous efficacy reaching 300 lm W opt −1 . The intrinsic absorption of the 2ML CdSe NPLs (≈2.15 × 10 6 cm −1 ) reported in this study is significantly larger than that of CdSe quantum dots (≈2.8 × 10 5 cm −1 ) at their first exciton signifying the presence of giant oscillator strength and hence making them favorable candidates for next-generation light-emitting and light-harvesting applications.
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